Zig vs Go: init and run

Source: Dev.to

Initialization

In Go we initialize a module with:

go mod init module-name

In Zig the equivalent is simply:

zig init

Zig does not require explicit “module paths” like Go, because there is no direct correspondence between a package import and a URL. This makes the approach more flexible, though less standardized.

Hello World Example

Go

package main

import (
    "fmt"
)

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Hell world")
}

Zig

const std = @import("std");

pub fn main() !void {
    std.debug.print("Hell World", .{});
}

Entry Point

Both languages reserve main as the entry point for an application.

• Neither main function accepts input parameters; arguments must be handled via standard‑library functions.
• Return handling differs: Zig treats main like any other function, returning an error or a value (e.g., void). In Go, a successful return is implicit, and errors are typically handled inside main using os.Exit(1) or panic("error!").

Running and Building

Running

# Go
go run main.go

# Zig
zig run src/main.zig

Building

# Go
go build main.go

# Zig
zig build src/main.zig

When building with Zig, a zig-out/bin folder is created containing the generated binary. This folder is a convention; examining build.zig shows that the definitions of build, run, and test are not hard‑coded into the tools but are expressed in code, using Zig itself as the language.